


Downtime

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 02:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Juggling the responsibilities of their friends' mental stability ends in a surprisingly relaxed Caleb.9x16 spoilers





	Downtime

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly mostly just fluff??? set in the downtime, third day i think? the night after caleb's fuckery with the dodecadoohickey

Jester knees Molly in the back, hard, it’s a stretch and she really wanted to kick him, but she can’t quite lift her leg high enough.   
Molly groans, flings am arm over his eyes as he turns onto his now-bruised back, more in her direction.   
“Jester.” He says, flatly, “Why are you in our room?”   
Fjord is coming awake on the other side of the bed, slowly, without a knee to his spine.   
“You need to get up.” Jester’s tone is just as flat as Molly’s, she leans over him and peels his arm away from his eyes, prompting a yelp as sunlight streams in and Molly’s head aches. It’s not nearly as bad as the drug hangover, but alcohol can be a bitch too, and Molly can’t remember how much he drank last night. He remembers Fjord winding an arm around him to carry him upstairs, though.   
“Why do  _ I _ need to get up?” he squints at Jester, and pulls himself to sit. Fjord mumbles unhappily about the cold draft at his back.   
“Because this is a problem for  _ you _ .”   
“Is it Yasha?” Molly is awake and half out of bed before Yasha’s name is out of his mouth, “Is something wrong? Beau too rough? Yasha too rough with Beau?”   
There’s a smirk to the last one, he begins the hummingbird dart around his room in search for his pants. Jester lifts her arm, where Molly’s pants are hung, neat and folded.   
“No.” She assures him as he takes them with muttered gratitude, “Not Beau or Yasha, they are  _ my _ problem! Your problem today is Caleb!”   
She swings the haversack from her back and, with some effort, tugs out the lead box with the dodecadoohickey in it. Molly pauses, one leg in his pants, and Fjord’s eyes lock to it as he sits up in bed.   
“Is that safe?” he asks, quiet, and Jester shrugs,   
“Caleb thinks so. Put your pants on, Molly, there’s someone at the door.”   
Molly looks to the doorway.   
“I didn’t hear a knock.”   
Jester huffs an angry breath and grabs Molly’s wrist with one hand, heaves the lid open with the other, “It is a figure of speech.” and presses Molly’s palm to the dodecahedron.   
“What are you-”   
Molly’s words cut off as he’s pulled into the world of the dodecahedron, and Jester lets go of his wrist. He doesn’t move. Stays still and distant.   
“What’d you do to him?” Fjord is moving across the bed, there’s the panicked flicker of concern but he trusts Jester too much to let it burn into a true flame. She comes to the edge and pulls herself up beside him.   
“Caleb found out about this last night.” She says, cheerfully, crosses her legs to watch Molly, “Some little grey thing that can make you lucky! I was going to use it for, um,” She pauses, looks at Fjord, and shrugs, “To make The Traveller proud, but I think that Molly could use it more. Besides, I can just do it tomorrow, if I don’t manage it today.”   
She gives him a grin, and he puts an arm around her shoulders to give her a brief squeeze.   
“He’ll be alright, though?” He tries to keep the doubt from his voice, and judging by the shove Jester gives him, he fails.   
“He’ll be fine! I think! I mean, Caleb came out of it alive, just a little sad?”   
“That’s  _ Caleb _ , he’s magical.” Fjord turns, frowning in concern.   
“What the fuck?” they hear Molly mutter, and their attention is drawn back. He’s still distant, but they can hear him mumbling now, if not everything he’s saying.   
“...Better than underground, I guess… Going to kill Jester… getting me- what the fuck are  _ you _ ?”   
“Caleb told me that he saw a weird grey orb thing. It took him a while to decide whether to grab it or not- oh!”   
A tiny, pulsating grey orb winds around Molly’s arm and moves into his chest.   
“I bet he tried to punch it.” Jester smiles brightly, and Molly draws back, scrambles a little, looking at his hand. And then at Jester.   
“What did you  _ do _ ?”   
“You should understand, now? Caleb said he just knew…”   
Molly puts his hand to his chest and realises that she’s right. He understands exactly what’s set up home in his heart.   
“Caleb.” Molly stands as he realises, “You said he’s my problem? Is  _ he _ okay?”   
Jester throws his shirt at him, and he catches it reflexively.   
“Actually, I don’t know! That’s what you’re going to find out.” She’s so cheerful, folded up on his and Fjord’s bed like she belongs there, he notices her hands are already working at some piece of chain that he guesses will be his gift for solving their Caleb problem.   
“Alright, fine.” He throws his hands up and realises, suddenly, that his headache is gone. Faded away as he travelled through clouds of purple and blue.   
“Off you go, then.” Jester shoos him away and rearranges to lie down, her head on Fjord’s leg and staring up at the chains in her hands as she unlinks and re-clips them.   
Molly pulls his shirt on and leaves.   
“Y’ quite comfortable there, Jester?” Fjord tries to sound impatient but he can’t, not with her. She stretches herself out.   
“It’s okay, Fjord, I’ll be leaving soon anyway.” She smiles, serene, and a chain link goes flying with her distraction.   
“Fuck!”

 

Nott scrambles up beside Yasha in the tavern of The Leaky Tap, slides a pretty, white flower across the gap between them.   
“Got you this.” She says, cheerful but quiet, “You liked the last one.”   
Yasha gives an awkward, genuine smile and picks it up, takes out her book to press it between two pages. She gives Nott a quick flash of the last flower she’d given to her, prompting a bright, excited grin.   
“Oh, you did keep it!”

Yasha blinks, shocked.   
“Of- of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”   
“Beau and Jester acted like- oh, it doesn’t matter.” Nott waves a hand dismissively, “I’m glad you kept it.”   
Yasha bumps Nott’s shoulder, very lightly, it still knocks her aside a little.   
“Sorry. Beau and Jester didn’t know me well, and, really, they still don’t.”   
Beau appears at the door and stretches, orders some breakfast. Yasha’s eyes trace her as she moves.   
“But you’re starting a relationship with them, anyway?” Nott half-teases, half-pries, her curiosity edging up higher with every moment that Yasha’s eyes aren’t on her.   
“I- I don’t know if you could call it that.” Yasha drops her eyes back down to Nott, “Not yet, not really.”   
Beau waves from the bar, Yasha sees her mouth  _ breakfast? _ And nods back, holds up two fingers. Beau turns away.   
“I… like them, I think that Beau is attractive, and that Jester is adorable. But I don’t think that it’s fair or responsible to, to enter into something, serious? Or act too far on those feelings.”   
Nott sits back, mostly sated.   
Beau begins her journey toward them, three plates balanced on her hands and arm.   
“Nott.” Yasha leans a little closer, “Please don’t mention any of this to anyone else.”   
“Even Caleb?” Nott’s eyes widen, Yasha nods.   
“Even Caleb.”   
Nott mimes locking her lips closed and Yasha relaxes visibly, sits back and lets Beau set a plate in front of her, and Nott, in turn.   
“Thank you.” She tells Beau, and Nott echoes her a second later. Beau sits opposite them and takes a bite of bacon.   
“No problem.”

 

Molly knocks lightly on Caleb’s door, uses his usual rhythm, and hears Caleb’s voice.   
“Door’s unlocked, Mollymauk.”   
He makes his way in.   
“No Nott?” is the first thing he asks, seeing her messy bed empty, the window clasps unlocked and thrown out.   
“No Nott.” Caleb affirms, he’s leaning up against his pillows and headboard, eyes trained on a book held between his knees. One hand is set to the edge, to turn the pages, the other is at his mouth where he chews, idly, on his finger as he reads. Molly moves to Nott’s bed first, scoops up the quilt and takes it to the window to shake the crumbs out of it.   
“Why are you here, Mollymauk? I do not believe you came at this time of the morning only to clean Nott’s bed. Especially as you were surprised she isn’t here.”   
“She’s downstairs with Yasha.” Molly gives as a reply, he spots Nott at the side of the alleyway pulling a pretty white flower from a flowerbox and darting aside again.   
“I take back my analysis.” Caleb says, bored and distant. Molly hears a page turn.   
He pins the edge of the quilt down with the legs of a chair, it hangs half out of the window to air whilst Molly sweeps crumbs and ash and other debris from Nott’s bed into his hand, and moves intermittently to the window to throw the handfuls down, careful to avoid those walking below.   
“So you  _ are  _ here to clean Nott’s bed?” Caleb says, after a few minutes of silent work and reading. Molly laughs a little,    
“No, this is just a bonus.” he turns to smile in Caleb’s direction and is surprised to find Caleb’s blue eyes trained on him, rather than the book. Caleb colours at being caught, and moves back to his book, quickly.   
“Why are you here, then?”   
Molly throws his last handful of dust from the window and pulls Nott’s quilt back in, shakes it once more and settles it on the bed, tucking it down silently as he considers his reply.   
“Molly?” Caleb’s eyes are back on him.   
“Sorry, I was thinking.” Molly says, honestly, and finishes Nott’s bed. He moves to Caleb’s instead, doesn’t miss the way that Caleb’s eyes follow him as he moves, makes an effort to make a show of it.    
And studies, as Caleb’s eyes dart from his face to his hips and the slight, deliberate sway, the wave of his tail, and he sits on the edge of Caleb’s bed, crosses his legs at the knee.   
“My  _ Molly sense  _ was tingling when I woke up this morning.”   
“Does your ‘Molly sense’ also go by the name of Jester, by any chance?” Caleb closes his book and leans over the side of the bed to set it on the floor. Molly smiles a little, pride and surprise at once,   
“It does occasionally.” He keeps his answer skirting, “Most times not, but sometimes, yes. It also goes by the names of  _ Fjord _ , or  _ Beauregard _ .”   
It’s Caleb’s turn to laugh now, even if his ‘laugh’ is more of a hard exhale than a true laugh.   
“What was your ‘Molly sense’ telling you?” Caleb tugs at the back of his shirt, and Molly unfolds to pull himself onto the bed and up next to Caleb, tilts his head back until his horns hit the wall. Caleb is side-eyeing him with a smile.   
He looks so calm.   
“That you had kind of a rough night.” Molly tilts his head, “Just here to see if you’re okay?”   
“I have a feeling you had a rougher night than I did.” Caleb tries his hand at teasing, and Molly feels two fingertips touch lightly over a bruise on his collarbone. Molly laughs.   
“That looks like something it isn’t.” He assures, “It turns out that Beau likes to bite things when she’s very drunk. And not in a hot way, either.”   
Caleb laughs again and withdraws his hand, leans a little so that his shoulder is pressed to Molly’s.   
“How did she manage to bite you there? Aren’t you the same height?”   
“Just about.” Molly grins, “She slumps when she’s tired, you’ve carried her before. I made the mistake of teasing Yasha, and Beau just..” he taps at the bruise, “Went for it.”   
Caleb’s head tilts, Molly feels the first brush of hair against his cheek and tilts to him, too.   
He closes his eyes.   
“Are you falling asleep on me, Mollymauk?” Caleb’s voice is teasing, faux-mad, he prods at Molly’s thigh.   
“Depends.” Molly hums, “On whether you’re okay or not.”   
There’s a few moments of silence, Caleb’s hand settles on Molly’s thigh, so lightly that it’s barely there at all.   
“I am never really okay.” Caleb admits, “But I would not say any less than usual.”   
Molly pulls an arm up and, with some difficulty, slips it around Caleb’s waist.   
“I’d drink to that, if it wasn’t ten in the morning.”   
“Eleven thirty.” Caleb corrects, and Molly smiles. Caleb is always on time, he’s so smart.   
Molly feels Caleb regulating his breathing under his touch, calm and even, and though the breathing is forced he knows that Caleb is more relaxed than he has been in weeks.   
“Do you want to take a nap?” Molly surprises himself with the softness of his voice, and Caleb takes a deep, even breath, nods.   
“Very much.”   
They sidle down the bed until they’re lying, rather than sitting, and lie in a loose embrace. Molly meets Caleb’s eyes, silent for a few moments.   
“Is it okay if I kiss you?”   
Caleb is silent for another few, and answers, eventually,   
“Yes.”   
Molly leans in, slow and gentle, presses his lips to Caleb’s and feels Caleb’s loose grip on his hip twitch marginally tighter. He drops away and smiles, blinks slowly, the same way that Frumpkin does when he’s feeling particularly gentle.   
“Thank you.” Caleb says, so quiet it’s almost a hum, and Molly’s thumb brushes back and forth against his back.   
“It’s okay, darling.” Molly replies, as Caleb’s eyes close. “Go to sleep.”   
Molly closes his eyes, too, and lets himself fall away.    
He didn’t even need the extra luck.

**Author's Note:**

> ngl i actually rly like this one shower me with attention
> 
> also check out my tumblr @ [zemniannights](https://zemniannights.tumblr.com) i do some good art!!


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